Open Source ‘Napster’ Resurrected After 8-Year Dormancy

A small group of programmers plans to breathe new life into the Napster-spawned OpenNap protocol that was designed to help dejected music fans share files using similar technology after the official Napster servers blinked off.

The team says the open source OpenNap 2.0 (web page removed, see update), still under development, will ignore “copyrighted” music files in an attempt to avoid the sort of RIAA scrutiny that shut down the original Napster and its open source clone, the first OpenNap. They don’t seem totally clear on how to do this — only that it’s worth doing because when the first Napster came into being, no licensed online source offered a comprehensive catalog of music. Given today’s legitimate online music marketplace, these guys think it’s time for a non-infringing descendant of Napster.

Project lead Wayne Facer, a fan of the original Napster who was not involved in the earlier OpenNap iteration, said he and two other open source programmers have taken over the project on SourceForge.net after trying unsuccessfully to contact its original developers, and are rewriting the code from the ground up (see update) to run on new operating systems like Apple OS X, Linux, Open Solaris, Windows 7, and Haiku — and to add copyright observance. They expect to have the new servers and clients up and running some time next year.

11/16 Update: Citing “a negative response to [the] OpenNap revival project,” Facer removed the web page from its original location (opennap.sourceforge.net). He said he’ll put another one up somewhere else soon “committed to the same goals as described.”

11/6 Update: Facer later explained that his team now plans to re-use some OpenNap code. “Originally [I] didn’t want to use the old OpenNap code. [It] turns out I may have to but in this case, [we] will be modifying it for our needs,” he said. “Engineering a new protocol can take up to a few years. We’re always looking for programmers to help out.” Facer added that his team is working on the protocol and another team is working on the client.

“The motivation is simple,” said Facer. “[The first] Napster is ten years old and changed the music industry forever. Today we have iTunes, Rhapsody and others which allow us to buy music. We feel we can release a protocol which can not only allow sharing of files but protection of music and other copyrighted material.”

When asked whether he anticipates issues with the RIAA, Facer was unequivocal: “Yes, I anticipate problems,” he said. “The original OpenNap was shut down in 2001 because it infringed on copyright rules. When we design and deploy this version, we hope to satisfy the RIAA by including the copyright protection within the protocol.”

That is simpler said than done, and could spiral into a quixotic quest to please the RIAA and the labels it represents.

No DRM will be involved in this attempt to observe copyright, according to Facer, who said the new protocol could ignore certain files by referring to Gracenote’s content database. Rules about which files not to share would be themselves shared between OpenNap servers. Older, non-copyright-observing clients would not connect to the new servers, while new clients would not connect to servers that don’t observe the copyright rules. The client would connect to bit torrent in addition to OpenNap servers, but would apply the same copyright filter, refusing to download blacklisted files from bit torrent.

Other than that, the developer was frustratingly vague about how he plans to solve a problem that has baffled everyone who has tried: how to make a P2P network that attracts users without offering them “copyrighted music.”

Part of the problem is that all recorded music is copyrighted.

Whenever anyone records music into a “fixed medium,” they have created a copyright, which they own. Regardless of whether they choose to sell the copyright to a label and/or publisher, the song is subject to copyright law, and the owner could decide to take action if the copyright is infringed. When Facer says his system will ignore all “copyrighted music,” he’s really saying that it will ignore all recorded music.

What he means is that he wants the new OpenNap to ignore music that is owned by parties likely to sue OpenNap when it is traded by users without permission. The best opportunity for OpenNap to create a “do not trade” list might be for the site to operate under the Digital Millennium Copyright Act’s “take down provision” — the same strategy the web-based music sharing site Grooveshark uses, which protects network operators from liability for content shared by its users, provided the network removes offending content promptly when notified.

Of course, users can rename files. If OpenNap takes off, and starts blocking certain songs after the labels complain, people could circumvent the blockades by renaming files using various renaming conventions. That is exactly what happened when the original Napster tried the same strategy.

Another option is to use acoustic fingerprinting to block files based on how they sound. But that’s expensive, and so difficult that it took Google and YouTube years to implement it successfully, so it would represent a major challenge for three coders working on the project in their spare time, as all three have unspecified day jobs.

If blocking “copyrighted music” ultimately proves too difficult, Facer plans to pull the ripcord, as noted on his website: “We will, if needed, shut down this project if it doesn’t satisfy the RIAA requirements.”

RIAA senior vice president of communications Jonathan Lamy wouldn’t comment on how likely Facer’s plan is to succeed, but offered the following comment: “We welcome all services that respect the copyright laws and look forward to reviewing this offering.”